Written by Gary D Schmidt (Penguin) Guest reviewed by Aimee (13) Orbiting Jupiter is a heartwarming story about a teenage boy called Joseph, who has a baby. Joseph moves in with a foster family but all he can think about is meeting his daughter. The story is told from...
“All evening the North wind roared.” These evocative words set the atmosphere for the story about the night Harry and his family hole up inside while a storm roars around them.
Aurora and the Popcorn Dolphin is the third book in the Songbird Cafe Girls series for preteens about friendship, family and life.
An award winning book about a young girl called Annabelle coming of age during the 2nd world war. While the war rages she deals with a much closer threat – a bully who manipulates her way into their community and rips it apart.
Letters to the Lost is a beautifully written exploration of grief, loss and acceptance explored through the lives of two very different teens – Juliet who has lost her mother, and Declan who has lost his sister.
Do you wish there were more books about kick-ass female role models to share with your kids? Superwoman is all well and good but Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is the real deal. Real women doing extraordinary and inspiring things.
August is a little boy who looks different from anyone else. Really different. He has one eye and other strange, misshapen features that make children stare at him. But inside he is just a little boy who loves his dog Dasiy, likes to play ball, eat ice cream and ride his bike. Since he knows he can’t change the way he looks, he wonders what it would be like if people could change the way they see him.
This is the mixed-up summer that twelve-year-old June Farrell learns about making the best pies and sticking by her family – even if it means facing bullying and shame.
Gary, John, and their dad are lost without their mum, who died in a car accident. Fourteen-year old Gary feels locked in his own pain which is made worse by his falling grades at school and his inability to come to terms with his mum’s death. He begins to go off the rails, getting involved with local thugs and teetering on the brink of being on the wrong side of the law.
The Word of Mouse is about a sky-blue mouse called Isaiah “whose life has been one big fright fest”. Isaiah gets separated from his family and has to find his way back.
We can’t wait for this debut novel about a young girl who discovers a love for running in the midst of a family tragedy. Wing Jones is a young girl in a mixed-race family who deals with her brother’s accident by searching for an escape.
What do you do with a problem? Do you ignore it, do you shoo it away or hide from it? A beautifully simple book about facing problems and finding their gifts. When a little boy is filled with anxiety about an unnamed problem following him around, he struggles to think what he can do.
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